North Carolina DMV will no longer issue license plates bearing the Confederate flag
The state Division of Motor Vehicles says it will no longer issue or renew any license plates that contain the Confederate battle flag or any variation of it.
The DMV says it has determined that plates bearing the Confederate flag “have the potential to offend those who view them,” the agency said in a statement. “We have therefore concluded that display of the Confederate battle flag is inappropriate for display on specialty license plates, which remain property of the state.”
The new policy went into effect Jan. 1.
The decision means the DMV will not issue new specialty plates for members and supporters of the N.C. Sons of Confederate Veterans, whose plate includes an image of the red banner with crossed blue stripes flecked with stars. More than 2,500 of the group’s specialty plates are in circulation, according to the DMV.
It will take a year for the plates to disappear. As people go to renew their license this year, the DMV will notify them that they cannot keep the plate with the Confederate emblem, said spokesman Steve Abbott. They’ll then be offered a standard plate or a different specialty plate, Abbott said.
Early Tuesday, R. Kevin Stone, commander of the N.C. Sons of Confederate Veterans, issued a statement condemning the DMV’s decision.
“This blatant discrimination by our government is being driven from ignorance of our State’s true history by some and a deep hatred for native Southerners by others,” Stone wrote. “We fear it is more of the latter, being driven by racist organizations and intolerant politicians that would rather condone violence and destruction against anyone or anything that doesn’t conform to their way of thinking.”
Many specialty plates
The DMV offers more than 100 specialty license plates that let drivers show their support for various causes, institutions and sports teams. They cost more than standard plates, and part of the proceeds go to support the sponsoring organization.
Just as there have been calls to remove public monuments to the Confederacy, interest groups and politicians have tried to get the battle flag removed from state license plates for years.
Five years ago, two liberal groups delivered petitions with 13,000 signatures calling on Republican Gov. Pat McCrory to end the plates. McCrory said he didn’t have the authority and urged the General Assembly to act. Senate leader Phil Berger said McCrory should act on his own.
The DMV resisted the Sons of Confederate Veterans specialty plate from the beginning. When the Sons of Confederate Veterans applied in 1997, then DMV Commissioner Janice Faulkner ruled that it was not a civic organization eligible for a specialty plate because its membership was limited to male descendants of Confederate soldiers.
Faulkner insisted at the time that the battle flag was not the reason for her decision.
The group sued and won. The DMV says it will continue to abide by that ruling and recognize the Sons as a civic organization entitled to a specialty plate. But in its statement, the agency said efforts to work with the group to develop artwork for the plates that does not contain the Confederate flag have so far failed.
“SCV’s classification as a civic organization does not entitle it to dictate the contents of the government speech on that specialty plate,” the DMV wrote.
But in his statement, Stone said the Sons of Confederate Veterans is not interested in changing what is the group’s registered logo.
“The SCV has no desire to change the official emblem of our organization, to meet the overreaching and hysterical demands of the NC-DOT, nor any group, or person that is not an SCV member,” he wrote.
“Our legally registered emblem perfectly represents our membership and our shared family history,” he added. “Hating our group’s emblem is equivalent to hating our group’s members. If you hate us, we pray for you and hope that one day you may learn what true tolerance, inclusivity, and peace are.”
The move by the DMV comes a few months after the N.C. Department of Transportation said it would begin removing signs and markers on state property that refer to the Jefferson Davis Highway.
The highway named for the Confederate president was a project of the United Daughters of the Confederacy more than a century ago but was never recognized by the state. NCDOT identified several signs and monuments that refer to the road along its 160-mile route from the Virginia state line south along U.S. 15 and U.S. 1 to South Carolina.
This story was originally published February 1, 2021 at 4:11 PM with the headline "North Carolina DMV will no longer issue license plates bearing the Confederate flag."
